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I dug strategy/futuresports robo-tournament Frozen Endzone, but while I’m well aware it’s just in beta form for now I’m very much in need of more personality (and in the game, etc) and variety if I’m to be in it for the long haul. Fortunately devs Mode 7 have detailed their plans for the game’s first major update, and it sounds as though they’ll be tackling HAHA LIKE IN SPORT quite a few of grumbles I grumbled its way, grumblily.
Individual player stats and more animations are the headline features for me, as I’m very keen that matches feel more distinct from each other (if only because my sleep deprivation-demolished short term memory means I’m rubbish at keeping track of which one’s which), but I imagine the game editor and redesigned Handball mode will be a bigger deal to less superficial, more devout players.

Here’s the list for the update, which is due in February:

- Player stats including speed, blocking, strength, evade, resilience, burst, interception, catching, throwing stats
– Edit your own team with player stats and challenge other people’s teams online
– Redesigned and polished Handball mode. Handball is quite a lot different from “Endzone” as it’s a longer-form mode with interceptions and turnovers and end-to-end action. There is currently an alpha version of Handball in the beta
– Easy-to-use playfield editor
– Game mode editor
– Timed turns
– Loads of new tackle and celebration animations
– Loads of bug fixes and little tweaks

Later still, they’ll put out a “full single player campaign with an in-depth story” and a player customisation tool, plus new game modes, which all sounds like exactly what I want. In theory, anyway.

As an American with no interest in the actual sport, Frozen Endzone has very little in common with it. They share the common tropes of passing the ball and trying to get it to one side of the field, but that’s about it.

The only similarity to other ball sports is that the person carrying the ball is important.

FE is a game of moving an important resource, through a maze, to a destination, all the while desperately second guessing an opponent who can disrupt your plans by putting his 5 players into places that you don’t want them to be.